QueryTrackerBlog

Monday, February 16, 2009

QueryTracker.net Feature of the Week

Since I'm on a premium feature kick after last week's post, I thought I'd discuss one of my favorite premium features: the Genre Agent Report.

At the top of the selection box for the Genre Agent Report is a tab you can click for more information about the report. If you don't have a premium account, you'll be able to see a sample report on this page.

That's right... this report lets you see the acceptance rates of agents FOR YOUR GENRE and compare that to other agents. This not only allows you to identify agents who are truly interested in your genre of manuscript, but can also help with the ambiguous "commercial fiction" category.

When an agent lists just "commercial fiction," does that mean they are only interested in mainstream fiction? Or in sub-genres that can fall under the "Commercial Fiction" heading?

Well, you can use this feature to find out.

Here's how to create your own Genre-Agent Report:

Just select your genre from the dropdown menu...

Click "submit" to generate your report. You can then sort the list. The acceptance percentage column (the smiley face with the % sign) will probably be the most useful to sort by.

You can now easily see the acceptance rates for each agent, as well as how many queries they received in your genre (to give you some perspective as to how significant the rates are.)

The list also gives you direct links back to the agents' profiles, providing an easy way to add prospective agents to your query list.

The sample list above includes Jeff Kleinman from Folio. Mr. Kleinman's profile does not list women's fiction as a genre he represents, and yet of 3 queries he's received for women's fiction project, he request more material on 2 of them. That suggests to me that this agent includes women's fiction under the commercial fiction umbrella, and so I can add him to my query list (even though his listing would not have come up through a search for women's fiction agents).